Thursday, December 14, 2006

Another Interesting Site

"Mixes" Bible critisizm with New Testament critisizm. Bible- Da' ma shetashiv.New- The historical truth about the subject (a lot of misconceptions out there!)

"What is interesting about the Jesus Movements as the source of Christianity and the Jesus myth, is that they were the source of Gnosticism, which for many decades, was considered by scholars to be a Christian heresy which arose in the second century. Scholars had presumed this mostly as a result of the comments made in the screeds of Iraeneus, who railed against this widespread and threatening "heresy" endlessly. But it is now widely accepted that Gnosticism was widespread by the time Jesus is supposed to have lived, and now, having the Nag Hammadi library as a treasure trove of new information, we now know that its mythology was Jewish, not Christian, its metaphysics was Neo-Platonic and Neo-Stoic, and it shared ideas from Egyptian, Greek, Jewish and "Hermetic" mystery religions, and was an outgrowth of the Jesus Movements. Yet, when one reads the Nag Hammadi gospels we have today, we also read constant references to Jesus, including such stories as the Last Supper and the Crucifixion - evidence that the Gnostic gospels themselves borrowed from later Christian sources. But the Jesus myth's widespread popularity among the Gnostics by the first third of the first century leads to the suggestion that, unless a wholesale and dramatic conversion took place (for which there is no evidence whatever), the Jesus myth was already widespread among the Gnostics by the time Jesus was supposed to have lived and died, and he died a long time ago. He wasn't a contemporary divine Messiah-figure. At least not yet."

על המחבר

I'm a Talmudist who has emerged from the Beit Midrash into the world with a vision that filters my reality through a Theological prism, though on the other hand I feel our religion has been corrupted by adding too much to it. I therefore attempt to reevaluate life and Judaism using thinkers in the spirit of Rational Judaism as my guide, while sometimes digressing about my station in life.
...I also talk about shidduchim sometimes!